UPLAND >> A couple looking for help with their three young children have found themselves living in what they describe as a nightmare.

Marcella Bracamonte said she and her husband, Ralph, sought out a full-time, live-in nanny on the website Craigslist. What they got was 64-year-old Diane Stretton, who’s now squatting in their family home, the couple say.

“We checked her references, and everything checked out,” Bracamonte said. “So we hired her on March 4, and it went downhill from there.”

Bracamonte said Stretton just stopped working and turned a family home into a hostile place.

“She wasn’t performing as a nanny or doing what we had asked her to do, and we ended up trying to give her chance after chance after chance,” Bracamonte said. “So we fired her and told her to move out, but she said she has tenant rights and refused to leave.”

Law enforcement has been unable to help the family, she said.

“Police told us there was nothing they could legally do to help us out,” she said. “So we filed the paperwork to evict her, and she in turn filed a motion to quash.”

Bracamonte said the paralegal that filled out the eviction paperwork did it wrong, and the judge agreed.

“Now we have to file paperwork again to reclaim our home,” she said. “This woman has tormented us and victimized us in our own home. We don’t even feel safe with her here.”

Stretton apparently has filed multiple lawsuits against various people and organizations over the years, and even threatened to sue the Bracamontes for elder abuse, Americans with Disabilities Act violations and wrongful termination, according to the family.

“She won’t leave,” Marcella said. “She should do the responsible thing, but I know she just wants me to pay her off and I’m not going to. I’m not going to feel like a victim in my home anymore. I’m fighting back.”